The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Pumping of process fluids are used in many industries Process fluids may be pumped with various types of pumps such as centrifugal, positive displacement or use of a pressurized drive fluid acting upon the process fluid. A slurry is one type of process fluid used in a process. Slurries are typically abrasive in nature. Slurry pumps are used in many industries to provide the slurry into the process. Sand injection for hydraulic fracturing (fracking), high pressure coal slurry pipelines, mining, mineral processing, aggregate processing, and power generation all use slurry pumps. All of these industries are extremely cost competitive. A slurry pump must be reliable and durable to reduce the amount of down time for the various processes.
Hydraulic fracturing of gas and oil bearing formations requires high pressures typically up to 15,000 psi (103421 kPa) with flow rates up to 500 gallons per minute (1892 liters per minute). The total flow rate using multiple pumps may exceed 5,000 gallons per minute (18927 liters per minute).
Slurry pumps are subject to severe wear because of the abrasive nature of the slurry. Typically, slurry pumps display poor reliability, and therefore must be repaired or replaced often. This increases the overall process costs. It is desirable to reduce the overall process costs and increase the reliability of a slurry pump.
Other components of the hydraulic fracking system also have weaknesses due to the abrasive slurries travelling therethrough. Check valves, pipes, pipe joints and fittings can suffer rapid erosion and “wire drawing” caused by high velocity fluid. Further, pressure vessels may be used and if a large number of penetrations in the tanks are used, those places are also subject to cracking failure from stress concentrations and metal fatigue.